Startup 2

[scohan]

I want to have 2 SIDs running on a SunOS system (Oracle 8i) - one is a production DB, the other will be a development DB. The prod DB is currently mounted. I've created a dev init.ora file and created a script to create the DB. How do I get both up and running? I can only startup using one pfile. Am I supposed to put both DBs on the same init.ora file? Thanks.

 

[karluk]

You definitely shouldn't try to combine the two databases into one initialization file. That's guaranteed to fail.

Your two databases should both run independently using separate initsid.ora files. That will allow you to start them up and shut them down independently.

 

[scohan]

That's what I was trying to do, but when I try to mount the second initsid.ora I get the message the following message:

SVRMGR> startup nomount pfile=/opt/bin/oracle/app/oracle/product/8.1.5/dbs/initl
roldev.ora
ORA-01081: cannot start already-running ORACLE - shut it down first

What am I doing wrong? Thanks.

 

[raygg]

What does the init.ora file for each db look like? Does each have its own unique db_name, db_domain,instance_name, service_names? Shut down each and restart individually. It might help if you give the listener for each a separate name and set up multiple ports (1521, 1526, etc) for each db.

 

[scohan]

OK, I've verified that I have unique db_names, instance_names and service_names, but there isn't a db_domain defined in either initsid.ora file. I see a .com alias defined in the tnsnames.ora file. I assume this would be the db_domain of the prod db. Can I simply give the dev db a db_domain name of my own choosing? Where else do I have to refer to this (e.g., listener.ora, tnsnames.ora?) Also, what's the syntax on tnslsnr to stop and re-start the listenter? Thanks.

 

[DBAwhosaysNIE]

hey,

at the risk of asking the obvious did you change ORACLE_SID in your shell before trying to start the second one? that's usually what that message means.

here's a quick punchlist (assuming kshell; tweak for Bourne, bash, etc.) for running multiple DBs/instances on same box on Solaris:

1) export ORACLE_HOME=<path to home for test or prod> (note: running prod & dev on same box is fine w/unix but create separate homes for testing patches; NEVER do this w/NT!; also update LD_LIBRARY_PATH if necessary)

2) export ORACLE_SID=<prod or test>

3) env | grep ORACLE (to verify settings)

4) proceed with startup/shutdown/maintenance, etc.

there are several values in init.ora that can be defined relative to shell variables (ex. ORACLE_SID) but you should still have separate files. what we do is use a common config<SID>.ora file which is referenced by our various init<SID>.ora.

hope this helps

 

[scohan]

Thanks for asking the obvious, because I forgot to set the SID, however, not I get the following:

SVRMGR> startup nomount pfile=/opt/bin/oracle/app/oracle/product/8.1.5/dbs/initl
roldev.ora
ORA-27146: post/wait initialization failed


Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[DBAwhosaysNIE]

well in THAT case

check your /etc/system settings

you probably need to bump up your shared memory and/or semaphore settings (see install docs for calculating these values)

there's definitely a learning curve w/unix but Solaris is definitely the gold standard for Oracle platforms!

good luck!

 

[karluk]

If it's a semaphore problem, the documentation suggests to increase semaphores so that it's equal to

(PROD processes) + (DEV processes) + max(PROD/DEV processes) + 20